The group at the main campus in Duncan included a wider range of math abilities, and a much higher level of education. Five had some university level math; a couple of people were doing ABE math at the grade 10–12 level; one who didn’t have much formal education was used to using math in daily life and working in the trades, and one who had minimal math skills.
Participants here were mothers of pre-school children, who were taking classes at the alternate school located next door to the Centre, and whose children attended the day care centre.
Attendance was sporadic, but attendance seemed to make no difference to any changes in attitude, marks on the post test, or positive evaluation of the group sessions.
The group who signed up at the Reading and Writing Centre was the largest, at 15. Two of these participants never attended a single group session; six signed up at the beginning of September, but for various reasons they did not start attending until after the group had already been meeting for four to six weeks; three dropped out in the first month, after attending fewer than 4 sessions, and two more dropped out near the end of the set of sessions. One person attended nearly every session from the beginning to the end, an exception to the rule. The pattern of drop-outs and late entries meant that for the last eight sessions, there was a core group of seven engaged participants, with an average attendance of about five at each session. This pattern of late entry and drop-out reflected the attendance pattern of the program at the Reading and Writing centre. For the majority of these students, the instructors at the Centre were aware of the circumstances that caused the poor attendance, and they worked to help students solve these problems (finding day care, for example), or encouraged them to make a late entry when circumstances allowed. Attendance at the parents’ sessions was closely associated with attendance at the Centre. While it would have been easy to continue at the Centre program, but drop out of the parents’ group (no one did), it would have been difficult for someone who had dropped out of the Centre program to continue to show up there for the parents’ group.
Ten people initially signed up for the group at the Cowichan Campus and did the pre-test and initial interview. Of these, there was one no-show, and two attended only one session. On the third week, I changed this group from Monday and Wednesday to Tuesday and Thursday for administrative reasons, and this change made it difficult or impossible for some participants to attend. Others could not attend every session because of changing work schedules, no matter what days it was held. For all these reasons, this group was much smaller than the one at the Centre. We ended up with a core group of five participants, but a usual attendance of three or four, and occasionally only one or two people, at each session.